It was a happy evening posting meet results from my corner booth at O’Brien’s Irish Pub.
In the 32 seasons since Seton’s inaugural season in 1994-95, our boys and girls have now won 60 conference titles with numbers 59 and 60 coming in an exciting meet on Saturday. If you count a title as either a regular season championship or a conference championship meet championship, that makes it 31 out of 32 for the girls and 29 out of 32 for boys.
I’ll never forget that one missing title for the girls two (2) short years ago against Trinity Christian School, our conference nemesis since they came in the Delaney Athletic Conference (DAC) in 2015.
In the ’23-’24 Regular Season Dual Meet championship, I thought we had it. After the girls 400 Free Relay, my calculation of the score was 158 to 157 – but then came the surprise – a DQ slip for an early take-off on our “B” Relay. That switched 3-points from Seton to Trinity Christian, so we ended up losing 160 to 155. Argh!!
But we still had the 2024 Conference Championship Meet, right? Well, that came down to the final relay also and we ended up losing 310-309. With more than 600-points scored, we lost by only 1-point – the equivalent of a single 12th place finish. One look at the Girls 50 Free results made the whole thing even more painful. The Trinity Christian girl took 2nd at 25.20 and our girl took 3rd at 25.22.
So, it is no overstatement to say that we lost the ’23-’24 girls conference championship by 0.02 seconds! That ended a 29-year streak up to that point!
The Boys have lost the conference title three (3) times since the beginning. The first blank spot on the banner in our gym was from the ’95-’96 season, so I’m not sure what happened that year, but I definitely know what happened with the two blank spots between from 2013 to 2015 – the Fredericksburg Christian boys!
Sustained excellence over 25 or 30 years requires constant vigilance. It’s very hard to do, especially if the head coach drops the ball from 2011 to 2013. Those were the years I decided it would be a good idea to get an MBA at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia while still teaching, coaching, and trying to make a living. Swimming suffered when the normal recruitment and development of younger swimmers was the casualty, and the results of that lack of vigilance came to fruition shortly thereafter.
Fredericksburg Christian had picked up a slew of good USA swimmers around that time, and that was more than we could handle. In the ’13-’14 season, they beat us handily in the regular season, but we lost the Conference Championship meet by only 6-points, 256 to 250. We were leading into the final relay.
Looking back at results from the ’14-’15 Conference Championship Meet, Fredericksburg Christian owned us, 496-348, but in the regular season, we beat them 2 out of 3 times. Back then however, we used to designate which Meets “counted” so only the first two encounters were taken into consideration. We won the first one 150-136 and Fredericksburg Christian won the second one 159-127, so they were declared the regular season champion based on point differential.
In the ’15-’16 season, after coming off two (2) straight years of losing the title to Fredericksburg Christian, we finally got back to the winning ways that have continued for the last decade. In our first dual meet that year, we won by only 4-points, 145-141. Back then, we still tried to get two (2) separate dual meet scores, so if we could only schedule one dual meet during the season, we would take the results of the VISAA Division II Invitational and rescore them as a 3+ Dual meet. In that one, we tied 143-143! So, we won the regular season by only 4-points!
Then, in the Conference Championship Meet that year, we lost for the last time in another nailbiter 270 to 266 – (you guessed it) – on the last relay!
Fortunately, the last relays went quite a bit differently on Saturday! I’ll tell you more about that in a bit.
Final Results
Going into this year’s VCAC Regular Season Dual Meet Championship, the girls were facing their normal competition, Trinity Christian School, and the boys were facing the up-and-coming team from the Immanuel Christian School. It went better than expected, although the fact that Immanuel Christian was missing two (2) key players (especially their top diver) while we were only missing one (1) certainly helped.
Here is a breakdown of all the Conference Meet Scores from Saturday:
Girls
Seton Swim & Dive 181 Trinity Christian 132
Seton Swim & Dive 208 Fredericksburg Christian 76
Seton Swim & Dive 219 Oakcrest 87
Seton Swim & Dive 220 Immanuel Christian 87
Seton Swim & Dive 219 Saint John Paul the Great 76
Boys
Seton Swim & Dive 184 Immanuel Christian 118
Seton Swim & Dive 209 Trinity Christian 79
Seton Swim & Dive 215 Saint John Paul the Great 68
Seton Swim & Dive 240 Fredericksburg Christian 39
Before the meet, I “scored the Psych Sheet”, which means that I pretend that everyone in the meet will swim exactly their seed times and see what the score would be. As you can see, we “outswam our seeds”:
| Seton Boys | Immanuel Christian Boys | |
| Psych Sheet Score | 162 | 149 |
| Actual Scores | 184 | 118 |
| Seton Girls | Trinity Christian Girls | |
| Psych Sheet Score | 172 | 143 |
| Actual Scores | 181 | 132 |
If you would like a primer on how high school meets are scored, see my blog, So How is a High School Meet Scored, Anyway.
Three (3) Relays that Could Break Team Records?
In a Meet like this, the outcome of the relays always makes a huge difference because of the potential point differential involved. While individual events score 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 for 1st through 7th place, the relays score 10, 5, 3.
That means if one team gets 1st and the other team gets 2nd and 3rd, then the score for that event is 10-8 – almost a wash. But if one team gets 1st and 3rd, the score goes to 13-5, and if one team gets both 1st and 2nd, the score goes to 15-3. Those are big differences.
I had our relay entries mapped out like this:
- Boys win the relays overall versus Immanuel Christian by 2-points, Seton 28 to ICHS 26
- 200 Medley Relay – 1st only – win 10-8
- 200 Free Relay – 1st and 3rd – win 13-5
- 400 Free Relay – 2nd only – lose 5-13
- Girls lose the relays overall versus Trinity Christian by 2-points, Seton 26 to TCS! 28
- 200 Medley Relay – 1st and 3rd – win 13-5
- 200 Free Relay – 2nd only – lose 5-13
- 400 Free Relay – 2nd and 3rd – lose 8-10
But that is not the way it turned out. In the end, we
- Won the Boys’s relays by 18-points, Seton 36 to ICHS 18, and
- Won the Girl’s relays by 8-points, Seton 31 to TCS! 23
Why such a big difference? A small part of the answer was two (2) DQs on Immanuel Christian “B” Relays, but one would have gotten 4th place so they really just lost one 3rd place finish (a 6-point swing). Immanuel was also missing one of their relay swimmers, but given where he would have likely swum, my projections show that the outcome would not have changed in either the 200 or 400 Free Relays.
The bigger part of the reason were three (3) amazing relays that could break team records this year, the Boys and Girls 200 Medley Relays and the Girls 400 Free Relay – none of which have any seniors!:
- Our Girls 400 Free Relay of Melissa Paradise (JR), Therese Paradise (8), Maggie Schroer (SO), and Ariana Aldeguer (JR) was just ridiculous. Had they known how close they were to the team record, I’m sure they could have gotten it, so this one is just a matter of time I think.
- Looking at the sum of the best splits for the swimmers from Seton and from Trinity Christian, we should have lost this relay by 0.95 seconds. Trinity Christian’s theoretical best time was 3:41.00 and Seton’s theoretical best time was 3:41.95. We ended up winning by 12.98 seconds!
- It was over in the first few seconds when Melissa Paradise (JR) broke out off the start with a lead over the Trinity Christian swimmer of 3/4s of a body length. Her underwater off the block was textbook. Melissa’s best split going into the Meet was 54.74, but she ended up splitting 53.78 – a lifetime best flat start 100 Freestyle that gave us a massive 4.36 second lead.
- Then her little sister, Therese Paradise (8) leaped in right after with another lifetime best split of 55.98, a drop of almost a full second from her previous best split. By the time Maggie Schroer (SO) split 57.54 and Ariana Aldeguer (JR) split 54.08, they touched in a season best 3:41.38, beating their previous best by 7.08 seconds!
- The team record for this event was back at States in 2010 at 3:40.51 by Alex Doonis, Cat Rogers, Carolyn Claybrooks, and Lauren “the Machine” Donohoe. Those of four (4) of the most iconic swimmers in the history of Seton swimming – together they were responsible for four (4) straight VISAA Division II State Championships. Let’s get this one, ladies!
- Our Boys 200 Medley “A” Relay of Patrick Kay (SO) Lionel Martinez (JR), Thiago Martinez (SO), and Daniel Sokban (JR) was supposed to win, but not by such a large margin. The surprise of the race was Thiago Martinez’s butterfly split of 23.98! His previous best split was 24.39, and his new split would be the 5th faster 50 Free time on the team with one of those being his own 50 Free.
- Their final time was a season-best 1:42.70. The team record was set last season at States by Connor Koehr, Lionel Martinez, Joe Borneman, and Liam Halisky at 1:39.19. Based on a typical trajectory for relay times through the season, breaking this record is definitely possible.
- The other surprise of the race was our Boys 200 Medley “B” Relay of Dominic Judge (JR), Luke Partridge (JR), Ben Ellis (JR), and Joel Bookwalter (FR). They were supposed to get 4th but jumped to claim 3rd versus Immanuel Christian for another 6-point swing. Dominic led off with a 1.75 second 50 Back PR to go 27.45 and claim next week’s spot on the “A” Relay. Then, Luke Partridge split 31.67 in 50 Breaststroke, a 1.46 second PR split, followed by Ben Ellis’ 28.48 butterfly split, and Joel Bookwalter’s 26.11 anchor split. Joel’s previous best split was 26.95.
- The reason I projected our “B” Relay to get 4th is because the sum of their best splits was 1:57.70, but they ended up going an amazing 1:53.71. That beat the Immanuel Christian “B” Relay by almost 4 full seconds.
- Our Girls 200 Medley “A” Relay of Melissa Paradise (JR), Therese Paradise (8), Ariana Aldeguer (JR), and Maggie Schroer (SO) is the third relay that we have that could break a team record. Again, Melissa and Therese led the way with PR splits of 27.16 and 31.92, respectively. The resulting time for this relay was 1:51.56, very close to our team record of 1:50.25.
- Like the Boys Medley Relay record that was broken last year, the Girls’ record is one of the most iconic on our Record Board. It was set at States in 2011 by Alex Doonis, Cat Rogers, Bridget Wunderly, and Lauren “the Machine” Donohoe. They got the Silver medal at States that year with a swim that actually broke the previous State Record time – so, you can see how fast that relay was – and this year’s girls could break that record!
- Another record that could go down is our 50 Backstroke record, held by Seton backstroke All-America Anna Kenna at 27.03. Had Melissa Paradise not slipped on her start, I think she would have almost certainly got it on Saturday.
So, as you can see, we’ve got a pretty good handle on how to enter our relays, but is there some way to improve the way we do our entries for individual events?
Monte Carlo Simulations and Game Theory
When I say “It’s not about good, it’s about better”, I mean that independently of how good you currently are.
After 26 years of continuous improvement, you sometimes must really reach to keep finding ways to get better. You may even have to look at some of the greatest mathematicians in history for inspiration. Seton Swim & Dive is doing just that.
Last season, Coach Matt Schroer, Mike Judge, and I started discussing the idea of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to better prepare our meet line-ups in competitive. I mean why not? If I can personally take a large data set (the thousands of times I have store for Seton and our Conference Competitors) and turn it into what I think will be the most competitive meet line-up, shouldn’t AI be able to do that better than me?
After some false starts last year, I started talking about it again with a long-time family friend Michael Page (aka “our Cuban son”). Michael graduated from Notre Dame with Fr. Sean Koehr, and he has lived with us for most of the last 15 years.
Michael suffers from POTS disease.
POTS stands for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. It is a disorder of the autonomic nervous system which controls automatic body functions like heart rate and blood pressure. It can frequently be almost completely debilitating because when a person with POTS stands up, their body doesn’t regulate blood flow properly. Blood pools in the lower body, and the heart compensates by beating much faster than normal.
But that didn’t stop Michael, who managed to get a Notre Dame degree with POTS, from taking on this challenge – even without any formal computer science training. He has christened the results of his work “AquaForge AI” which is a software application written in Python that uses the xAI AI engine, Grok (Elon Musk), for the AI piece of the puzzle.
Before each competitive meet, I will “score the Psych Sheet”. The goal of the project was (and still is) to get a higher Psych Sheet score with AI-generated entries than with Coach Koehr-generated entries.
With Michael sitting on my couch, feet on the armrest so his legs were about his head and his laptop on his stomach, we discussed the first iteration of AquaForge AI. We limited scope by deciding that we would start by focusing on the individual swimming entries only. Michael thought that a Monte Carlo Simulation might be the best approach. A Monte Carlo Simulation is a computational technique that estimates outcomes by running a model many times with random inputs and analyzing the results.
I was familiar with Monte Carlo Simulations, because believe it or not, I used a Monte Carlo simulation with some software called Crystal Ball to simulate 100 women walking into a Walmart restroom and using paper towels – 1,000,000 times. To get the data required, I sat for hours outside of restrooms in Walmart stores around the country, counted 100 women (and about 60 men) walk in, emptied the trash, and then counted the number of paper towels they used. Believe it or not, I have hand-counted 19,600 used paper towels out of Walmart restrooms. Fortunately, getting the data needed for AquaForge AI is not that painful.
With that simulation, I was able to show several highly consequential things to a company that uses 1.5 million cases of paper towels every year. For instance, I was able to show that a 12” perforation on a Centerpull Paper Towel costs an average of 8.8% more than a longer 15” perforation and there is a 66% chance that changing to the longer perforation (i.e., less sheets per roll) would have the counter-intuitive result of saving the company money. The switch ended up saving Walmart almost $3.5 million.
When we scored this past week’s Psych Sheet with the individual entries I did myself and compared that to the score with the individual entries generated by AquaForge AI using a Monte Carlo simulation, we got the following disappointing results:
| Seton Boys | Immanuel Christian Boys | |
| Coach Koehr’s Entries | 116 | 115 |
| AquaForge AI Monte Carlo Simulation Entries | 113 | 118 |
| Seton Girls | Trinity Christian Girls | |
| Coach Koehr’s Entries | 130 | 102 |
| AquaForge AI Monte Carlo Simulation Entries | 118 | 114 |
The problem we realized was that AquaForge AI was assuming that we could change our outcome simply by changing our strategy alone. AquaForge had to make some assumption about what the competitors’ entries would be, and to tell you truth, we weren’t sure how it was doing that. Even with 10,000 iterations, which was taking a long-time, how could it know which one was the best line-up for us without making an assumption on the best line-up for Immanuel Christian and Trinity Christian?
After sleeping on it, I recalled what I had learned about Game Theory at the Darden School for Business and decided that maybe that was the best way to handle this problem.
Game Theory is the study of strategic decision-making, where the outcome of your choice depends not only on what you do, but also what others choose to do. Game Theory analyzes how rational players make optimal decisions when their outcomes depend on each other’s choices. That sounded like a better description of the game we were playing with Trinity Christian and Immanuel Christian. A Monte Carlo Simulation would have been the perfect solution had we known our competitors’ entries in advance – but we didn’t.
Game Theory was first introduced to the world in 1928 by John von Neumann, a Hungarian American mathematician, and it was later expanded in 1944 by Oskar Morgenstern who co-authored a real page-turner called “Theory of Games and Economic Behavior” with von Neumann.
Game Theory finally moved from the world of pure mathematics into mainstream economics, politics, international relations, social science, and business after Princeton and MIT mathematician John Nash introduced the concept of a Nash Equilibrium in the 1950s during the Cold War. If you have ever seen the movie, “A Beautiful Mind”, it is about John Nash – I highly recommend it, even if you aren’t a math geek.
The key idea of the Nash Equilibrium is that no player can improve their outcome by changing their strategy alone because one player’s strategy impacts the other player’s strategy. Using this insight, Nash was able to show that a stable outcome exists in many competitive situations (like the use of a nuclear weapon or a high school swim meet) and cooperative situations (like sharing expenses and profits in joint venture), even when interests conflict.
The classic case of a Nash Equilibrium is called the “Prisoners Dilemma” where prisoners must decide if they should rat out their partner (i.e., Confess) in exchange for a potentially lesser sentence. Imagine the case where:
- A Prisoner gets 1 year if he Confesses while the other Prisoner Remains Silent
- A Prisoner gets 2 years if they both Remain Silent
- A Prisoner gets 5 years if they both Confess
- A Prisoner gets 8 years if he Remains Silent while the other Prisoner Confesses
So, wouldn’t it seem obvious that both Prisoners should Remain Silent and get only 2 years each? While that is not what Game Theory predicts because you cannot improve your outcome by changing your strategy alone. Let’s play the game and see what happens.
For Prisoner A:
- If Prisoner B Remains Silent, his best course is to Confess because he gets 1 year instead of 2 years,
- If Prisoner B Confesses, his best course is also to Confess because he gets 5 years instead of 8 years.
For Prisoner B:
- If Prisoner A Remains Silent, his best course is to Confess because he gets 1 year instead of 2 years,
- If Prisoner A Confesses, his best course is also to Confess because he gets 5 years instead of 8 years.
And there is the Nash Equilibrium. In every iteration of the Game, the best choice is to Confess, thus leaving both Prisoners with the less-than-optimal outcome of 5 years in prison.
Boom! What if we used AquaForge AI to play the same sort of game but do it 1,000 or even 10,000 times. What if we used AquaForge AI to do Seton’s entries, and then we used it to find the optimal entries for Immanual Christian against those Seton entries, and then we used it to find the optimal entries for Seton against those Immanuel Christian entries – and so, and so on, back and forth, for 1,000 or 10,000 iterations – or until the system reaches some equilibrium where the Seton and Immanuel Christian entries are either stable or are alternating back and forth between the same two choices?
Michael was feeling good on the evening before the Meet, so he worked all night on implementing that idea. When I woke up (to a slew of e-mails requiring relay changes), he had the new AquaForge AI line-up on my e-mail. When I scored the Psych Sheet again with this new “Game Theory” line-up, here’s what I got:
| Seton Boys | Immanuel Christian Boys | |
| Coach Koehr’s Entries | 116 | 115 |
| AquaForge AI Game Theory Entries | 123 | 108 |
| Seton Girls | Trinity Christian Girls | |
| Coach Koehr’s Entries | 130 | 102 |
| AquaForge AI Game Theory Entries | 133 | 99 |
AquaForge AI beat Coach Koehr! And it did it in about 10 minutes!
This doesn’t mean that we are there yet, but it can certainly be a guide for producing the optimal entries for our next competitive dual meet – which won’t be until next season. Here are a few of the things that need to happen with the next iteration of the software:
- Data
- By far, the most time-consuming part of my work preparing entries is getting all of rosters and times cleaned up in my database. I’ve been tracking the times for all the swimmers in the VCAC in my Hy-Tek Team Manager database for many years now, but I still need to make sure that I have only their current roster active and, if they have kids who are USA swimmers, what their USA times are also. That can take hours.
- We’d love to figure out how to use some sort of API (i.e., Application Programming Interface) to just pull the all of the necessary data from SwimCloud and feed it into AquaForge AI automatically.
- And relay splits can be very tricky. If a kid doesn’t touch the pad properly and, as a result, the pad doesn’t record their finish until they are climbing out of the water, then my database ends up with Addi Hadro splitting 17.54 in 50 Free. All that currently needs to be cleaned up manually. I’m not even sure how AquaForge AI could even know to do that.
- Relays
- I still spend many hours figuring out the optimal relays for Seton, Trinity Christian, and Immanuel Christian, and then (without having realized it) iterating several times based on what I think Coach Knauf and Coach Burgess are doing to do.
- AquaForge AI needs to factor relay entries into it’s analysis of individual entries. It already knows not to put a swimmer in back-to-back events, but it doesn’t know that you can’t put Therese Paradise in 100 Breaststroke if she’s going to swim the 400 Free Relay.
- Championship Meets
- The current version of the software handles our line-up for a Dual Meet – in other words, only two (2) players – but a Championship Meet has many players.
- For the upcoming VCAC Conference Championship Meet, not only will we need the most current flat start and relay split data on every swimmer on every team in the conference, but AquaForge AI will need to iterate entries until it finds a Nash Equilibrium for all six (6) teams. Is that even possible?
This is so cool!
And just for the record, for this Meet, we used my entries, not anything generated by AquaForge AI, and here’s how the real-life final scores for just the individual entries turned out:
| Seton Boys | Immanuel Christian Boys | |
| Psych Sheet – Coach Koehr’s Entries | 116 | 115 |
| Actual Scores | 127 | 98 |
| Seton Girls | Trinity Christian Girls | |
| Psych Sheet – Coach Koehr’s Entries | 130 | 102 |
| Actual Scores | 130 | 101 |
Now let’s look at the difference makers for Seton in the individual events.
The Victory Started with Diving
Coach Ashley Keapproth’s Diving Team has become a force to be reckoned with! (I’m sorry, but the correct “a force with which to reckon” just doesn’t sound as good )
And leading that force on Saturday was sophomore Meghan Condon (10). Meghan entered the meet seeded 2nd by only 1.95-points behind Trinity Christian’s top diver, and she ended up winning by 11.65-points.
Given that 1st place gets 8-points and 2nd place gets 6-points, the result was a 4-point flip from the Psych Sheet Score to Seton. Meghan got 8-points instead of 6-points, and the Trinity Christian diver got 6-points instead of 8-points.
A similar thing happened on the boy’s side with Immanuel Christian except it was because their top seeded diver was sick. The result was that Seton got 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, instead of the projected 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. That was a 13-point swing from the Psych Sheet score, putting Immanuel Christian in a hole from the start.
I’ll let Coach Ashley Keapproth tell the rest of the Diving story with this excerpt from the notes she sent out to the Diving team
Good morning, Seton Diving Families–
I hope everyone had a restful Christmas break and enjoyed celebrating the birth of our Savior with family and friends!
Yesterday was an incredibly exciting meet!
Three more divers qualified for States and we had a phenomenal 3-dive exhibition meet. Lucy Herwick (9), Bella Gorman (8), and John Witter (8) — Welcome to the Seton State Team! They will join Meghan Condon (10), Maria Miller (12), Jane Judge (10), and Clare Kay (8), who had previously qualified for the State Championship.
Recap of the highlights and PRs of our VCAC Regular Season Championship:
- Meghan Condon (10) took 1st place and set a new PR for 11 dives of 324.75, crushing her prior 11-dive PR by over 25 points.
- Maria Miller (12) took 3rd place and was just shy of her 6-dive PR.
- John Witter (8) took 3rd place on the men’s side. He competed 11 dives for the first time ever with a score of 218.10 and qualified for States!
- Jane Judge (10) took 5th place and was just shy of her 6-dive PR, but set a new 11-dive PR with 236.05. Her back dive was gorgeous, earning 7s and higher from the judges!
- Lucy Herwick (9) had the 7th highest score and competed 11 dives for the first time ever. She had a great score of 238.55 and qualified for States!
- Bella Gorman (8) learned her 11th dive yesterday and competed in 11 dives for the first time ever! She scored 220.60 and qualified for States!
- Clare Kay (8) finished 7th and showed her grit and determination to come back after a failed dive and do her best dive in the meet. Often, we learn more from pushing through disappointment than just performing well, and Clare showed incredible mental toughness.
- Tom Waldon (10), Max Ashton (8) and Brian Orellanna (10) took 4th, 5th, and 6th respectively and contributed to Seton’s VCAC Team Victory!
Our 3-dive exhibition was hugely successful:
- On the boys side, Will Judge (7) took first with 60.30 points, setting a new PR! The judges loved his tight form and he did an excellent front dive tuck.
- Mark Hartung (7) placed 2nd with 58.20 points, crushing his prior PR by over 10 points! He performed an excellent front-one and a half somersault.
- Caleb Neuhaus (8) placed 3rd with 54.20 points. Caleb has learned so many new dives this year and has a bright future in diving!
- On the girls’ side, Clare Judge (9) finished first for the girls with 56.75 points, a new PR! Her final dive, an inward dive, was amazing and she has improved so much this season.
- Molly Croson (8) finished 2nd with 52.95 points. She also performed an excellent inward dive and has learned so much in her first season of diving.
- Penny Kramer (11) finished 3rd with 48.80 points. Her inward dive was also her best dive and she has worked hard this year to get higher off the board.
- Addi Hardo (8) finished 4th with 31.25 points. Her back dive earned great scores from the judges!
Thanks,
Coach Ashley
The Difference Makers for the Girls
Winning a Meet like this is the result of many small performances that add up to the whole.
It is amazing to me how close the final score came to the Psych Sheet score. That doesn’t normally happen. We had one key DQ individually which counteracted our overperformance in the relays a bit, but besides a few gives and a few takes, the story of the meet was everyone swimming well enough to hold their seeds against Trinity Christian.
While you are reviewing these results, remember that we had almost every swimmer that will eventually be in the Conference Championship Meet on February 7th. In that meet, we will score the top 12 places, so a top 12 overall finish here is an indication of a possible score in that big Championship meet.
Here are some of the difference makers for Seton among the girls:
- Melissa Paradise (JR) was a standout in this meet with two 1st place finishes in 200 IM and 100 Back. Neither race was close, particularly 100 Backstroke where she swam a lifetime best 56.35! That is not a typo. Her .58 second PR (over her previous best USA time) has her within .73 seconds of All-America Anna Kenna’s Seton 100 Backstroke record.
- Ariana Aldeguer (JR) took 1st place overall (i.e., against the entire field, not just Trinity Christian) in both 200 Free and 100 Fly. Neither result was particularly close and both were completely expected.
- Therese Paradise (8) is rapidly becoming a superstar for the Seton team. Coming into the meet, she was seeded 3rd versus Trinity Christian in 50 Free (6th overall) and 2nd (3rd overall) in 500 Free – and she won both events outright! In 50 Free, she out-touched a strong field with a .21 second PR. Among those she beat was the great freshman sprinter from Trinity Christian. In the 500 Free, she won handily after another 4.20 second PR. Her 500 Free time of 5:35.98 is a superior time for an 8th grade girl.
- Maggie Schroer (SO) got the job done for Seton with her 4th place overall finish in 100 Free and her 5th place overall finish in 50 Free.
- Philomena Kay (JR) held her seeds against Trinity Christian with strong swims in 200 Free and 100 Free that placed 5th and 6th overall, respectively.
- Avila Mantooth (SO) flipped 2-points towards Seton when her .13 second PR swim in 50 Free jumped ahead of a higher seeded Trinity Christian girl. She also jumped from the 10th overall seed to 9th in 100 Breaststroke with her .87 second PR swim in 100 Breaststroke.
- Sophia Halisky (SO) is starting to hit her stride, getting back close to her PR times after a long lay-off. I was pleased to see her swim so well in 200 IM and 100 Breaststroke where she held her seeds with a 4th place and the 6th place finish, respectively.
- Betsy Arnold (SO) had a tremendous swim in 200 Free, cutting 4.63 seconds from her PR. That jumped her from the 8th seed overall to 6th She also held her seed with a 6th place overall finish in 100 Back.
- Kyleigh Fifield (JR) had a tremendous swim in 200 IM, dropping 21.43 seconds and jumping from the 12th overall seed to 8th. She also took 8th overall in 500 Free and swam a .49 second PR in 50 Back leading off a relay.
- Gabby Russo (JR) took 6th against Trinity Christian in 200 Free and 7th in 500 Free to score 3 needed points in that meet.
- Aoife Haggerty (JR) had an important 1.52 second PR in 100 Breaststroke where she finished 11th on a 13th place overall seed. She also cut 1.34 seconds in 50 Free.
- Elizabeth Hurley (SO) swam two (2) PRs that helped her hold her seeds against Trinity Christian. She cut 1.97 seconds in 100 Free and .71 seconds in 100 Breaststroke. Her swim in 100 Free jumped her from the 17th overall seed up to 13th. She finished 12th overall in 100 Breaststroke.
- Annie Dusek (SO) may have found a home in the 500 Free after her big 10.60 second PR that jumped her from 11th overall seed up to 9th. She also placed 10th overall in 100 Fly.
- Jane Judge (SO) jumped from 13th seed up to 9th place after her 2.55 second PR in 100 Back. She also cut .71 seconds in 50 Free and 2.29 seconds in 50 Back, both leading off relays.
- Katie Bauer (SO) had a big 2.81 second PR in 100 Free to take 10th She was seeded 13th, so that is a very good sign.
- Charlotte Meadows (FR) is coming on strong with two huge Personal Records. In 100 Fly, she dropped 3.89 seconds to take 9th overall (from the 14th seed!), and in 100 Back she dropped 3.38 seconds to take 13th overall (from the 16th seed!).
- Lilly Waldron (SO) scored in 6th place against Trinity Christian in 50 Free after a great .22 second PR swim.
- Lara Martinez (8) placed 6th overall in 100 Fly in only her second meet back with Seton.
The Difference Makers for the Boys
The Boys also had a close competition, but they were able to move the needle a bit more from the Psych Sheet score with a number of outstanding swims. Here were some of the difference makers for the Boys:
- Lionel Martinez (JR) was outstanding as usual on Saturday. In the 200 Free, he swam a High School PR 1:45.52 (by .86 seconds) to handily beat two (2) top swimmers from Immanuel Christian. He repeated the feat in 100 Fly with a 51.87 PR swim that is now within .11 seconds of the school record set in 2010 by all-time Seton great Jameson Hill.
- Thiago Martinez (SO) was on fire Saturday. After splitting an unbelievable 23.98 in 50 Fly in that opening relay, he made our jaws drop again with his 51.20 in 100 Free. That was a 1.01 second PR, and it left the Immanuel Christian kid wondering if Thiago’s seed time could have been right. Then, not content with his 3rd seed overall in 100 Back, Thiago went 56.87 and jumped to 2nd This kid is going to be a good one for Seton.
- Daniel Sokban (JR) rocked 50 Free in 22.97, the first time he broke :23 from a flat start. It was a .46 second PR which is huge from a starting point that fast. He finished just .19 seconds behind Immanuel Christian’s top sprinter. I don’t expect that to happen next time – every time they race, Daniel gets a little closer. Daniel also had a lifetime best swim in 100 Free at 53.75. Not only was it a huge 1.58 second PR, he displaced a higher seeded Immanuel Christian swimmer to shift more points our way. It was definitely a great meet for Daniel Sokban.
- Dominic Judge (JR) finally had the meet that we knew was inside of him. Recall that he started the meet with that outstanding 1.70 second PR backstroke split leading off a relay, but then he jumped into the 200 IM to take 2nd overall at 2:15.61. Finally, in 100 Breaststroke, he swam a 2.23 second PR in 100 Breaststroke to hold serve with a 3rd place finish. Coach Bryce Bohman told me that Dominic could swim breaststroke, and he sure proved it on Saturday.
- Jack Herwick (SO) had to work to hold his seed in 200 Free, but he did it with a .66 second PR to take 5th He also held his seed in 100 Fly with his 4th place overall finish.
- Patrick Kay (SO) held his seed in a very fast heat of 100 Backstroke with a .18 second PR. He also held his seed in 100 Free, finishing in 6th He’s going to be a key player for us in the post-season.
- Greg Bauer (SR) took 3rd place in 500 Free and 4th place in 50 Free. Coach Bohman was working on that 500 with Greg this morning in anticipation of some big scoring opportunities in the post-season.
- Jonas Wilson (SO) jumped ahead of a higher seeded Immanuel Christian swimmer in 200 IM after a .31 second PR. That jumped him from the 7th seed to 5th. He also held his 4th place seed in 500 Free with an excellent swim.
- Joey Lynch (SO) needed his 1.74 second PR in 200 IM to hold his 7th place overall seed (and his 4th seed versus Immanuel Christian). He also had a strong swim in 100 Backstroke to hold his 10th place seed.
- Ben Ellis (JR) has worked his way up to group 2 on the strength of his improved performance. On Saturday his 1.15 second PR in 100 Breaststroke moved him into 4th place from the 5th seed, and his 27.52 in 50 Free scored in 11th place overall
- Luke Partridge (JR) scored in 7th and 9th place overall in 100 Free and 100 Back, respectively.
- Paul Partridge (8) is starting to make his mark on the team after two 7th place overall finishes. In 200 Free he dropped 10.18 seconds to move up from his 8th seed, and in 100 Fly he advanced from his 9th place seed.
- Joel Bookwalter (FR) scored with two 8th place overall finishes with two (2) outstanding PR swims. In 200 Free he cut 1.22 seconds, and in 100 Fly he cut 6.66 seconds. In 100 Fly, he also improved on his seed versus Immanuel Christian to increase our lead.
- Luke Fifield (FR) saw his work payoff with a huge 14.52 second PR in 200 IM to take 9th He also cut 2.01 seconds in 100 Free.
- Joe Witter (SO) moved from Group 5 last year up to Group 3 this year with his remarkable improvement, particularly in sprint freestyle. In the 50 Free he dropped another 1.17 second to go 27.53 and take 12th place overall. Joe also had a massive 4.51 second drop in 100 Free that would have scored in 9th place overall had he been a scoring entry.
- Charlie Dusek (SR) and Aiden McCardell (SR) were two (2) seniors who teamed up to score in 7th and 8th place, respectively, in the 500 Free.
- James Nguyen (8) made his way into the scoring for the first time in his Seton career with his 8th place finish in 100 Breaststroke. Nice work James!
107 New Personal Records
There were loads of other Personal Records on Saturday also. With 107 this week, our total for the season is now up to 572 Personal Records! Dramatic individual improvement continues to be the hallmark of Seton Swimming and Diving:
- Bethany Allen (7) cut a big 3.17 seconds in 100 Free.
- Naomi Allen (6) beat her previous best 100 Free by .04 seconds.
- Clara Bauer (7) dropped a huge 3.16 seconds in 100 Back.
- Emma Beltran (8) continues to improve in backstroke, this time with a 4.29 second PR in 50 Back leading off a relay.
- Anselm Clune (7) crushed his previous best in 50 Free by 3.50 seconds.
- Lucas de Brey (7) had a nearly unbelievable 37.26 second PR in 100 Breaststroke.
- Rafael De Micoli (SO) survived 100 Fly to swim a 3.31 second PR in 10 Breaststroke.
- Charlie Dusek (SR) looked better than ever in 100 Fly with his 11.52 second PR swim. He also cut another .71 seconds from his 50 Free PR.
- Mary Elder (6) made her grandfather proud with another 1.26 second PR in 100 Free.
- Thomas Goodman (8) made my jaw drop while I watched his 40.11 PR swim in 100 Back. That broke 2:00 for the first time.
- Addi Hadro (8) came off a good 5,000 Free at the CF Swim-a-thon to drop .85 seconds in 50 Free.
- Blaise Hallada (8) had two (2) PRs. He dropped 2.75 seconds in 100 Back and 1.65 seconds in 50 Free.
- Dominic Henry (SO) dropped a massive 29.08 seconds in 100 Breast and another .18 seconds in 50 Free.
- Natalia Hercules (7) beat her previous best in 100 Free by 2.36 seconds.
- Lucy Herwick (FR) had a big day with PRs in 100 Free, by 2.84 seconds, in 50 Free, by .87 seconds, and in 50 Back leading off a relay, by 2.51 seconds.
- Monica Irving (SO) cut 4.57 seconds from her 100 Back PR and .20 seconds from her 50 Free PR.
- Will Judge (7) looked great in 200 IM. He also looked good dropping .32 seconds in 100 Free.
- Clare Kay (8) beat her PR in 100 Free by 1.74 seconds and her PR in 50 Free by .12 seconds.
- Marian Kay (6) dropped 1.06 seconds in 50 Free.
- Cora Kramer (JR) lowered her 100 Breaststroke PR by 4.73 seconds.
- Rebecca Kramer (8) led off a medley relay with a 1.48 second PR in 50 Back.
- Julia Maranian (SO) cut .40 seconds in 50 Free.
- Gabriel Marm (SR) celebrated his appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point with PRs in 100 Free and 50 Free, by 5.41 seconds and 1.19 seconds, respectively.
- Evie Mayer (FR) beat her previous best in 100 Free by 1.55 seconds.
- Heidi Mayer (6) was awesome in 100 Free, lowering her PR by 13.59 seconds. She also lowered her 50 Free PR by 1.25 seconds.
- Maeve Mooney (6) made Grandpa proud with her .50 second PR in 50 Back leading off a relay.
- Philip Nguyen (8) crushed his 100 Breast PR by 26.90 seconds and his 50 Free PR by .50 seconds.
- Peter O’Malley (8) dropped 1.06 seconds in 100 Back.
- Gianna Pillion (FR) lowered her 100 Free PR by 1.13 seconds.
- Charlotte Poullath (8) beat her previous best time in 100 Free by 1.38 seconds.
- Camila Quispe (FR) continues to show stunning improvement. On Saturday, she cut 14.27 seconds in 100 Breast and 13.83 seconds in 100 Free.
- Alexis Reeves (6) dropped .19 seconds in 100 Back and .84 seconds in 50 Back leading off a relay.
- Sofia Reeves (7) dropped .80 seconds in 50 Free and 3.24 seconds in 100 Back.
- Therese Rehmann (6) lowered her 100 Breast PR by 7.20 seconds.
- James Reynolds (FR) looked good during his 6.73 second PR swim in 100 Breaststroke.
- Christopher Schroer (6) swam a 2.28 second PR in 100 Back and a 1.16 second PR in 50 Free.
- Daniel Schroer (6) also dropped in 100 Back, by 1.51 seconds.
- Dominic Sciscilo (7) crushed his 100 Free PR by 4.61 seconds and his 50 Free PR by .51 seconds.
- Bella Vaughan (FR) beat her previous best in 100 Free by 1.65 seconds and in 50 Free by 1.48 seconds.
- Jane Vaughan (7) lowered her 50 Back PR by 1.92 seconds.
- Joce Wilson (7) swam two (2) PRs. She dropped .58 seconds in 50 Free and .06 seconds in 100 Free.
- Patrick Wise (7) dropped .39 seconds in 100 Free and .08 seconds in 50 Free.
Championship Meet Qualifiers
Recall that there are two championship meets that are unique in that, to qualify, you or your relay must beat a qualification time at a high school meet during the current season. Those Meets are:
- The National Catholic High School Championship at Loyola University of Maryland in Baltimore, MD on January 17-18, 2026 (aka “National Catholics”)
- The VISAA State Swimming & Diving Championship at the Jeff Rouse Swim & Sport in Stafford, VA on February 13-15, 2025. (aka “States”)
I have posted both the qualification standards and the qualifying swimmers under Meet Information for both Meets.
Congratulations to Seton’s 2025 National Catholic Championship Team. There is still one more chance to add qualifiers at this weekend’s NoVa Catholics, but here is the team that we are taking to Baltimore so far:
- Swimmers
- Ariana Aldeguer (JR)
- Betsy Arnold (SO)
- Kyleigh Fifield (SO)
- Anastasia Garvey (SR)
- Philomena Kay (JR)
- Avila Mantooth (SO)
- Melissa Paradise (JR)
- Therese Paradise (8)
- Maggie Schroer (SO)
- Greg Bauer (SR)
- Jack Herwick (SO)
- Dominic Judge (JR)
- Patrick Kay (SO)
- Lionel Martinez (JR)
- Thiago Martinez (SO)
- Daniel Sokban (JR)
- Michael Zahorchak (JR)
- Divers
- Meghan Condon (SO)
- Bella Gorman (8)
- Lucy Herwick (FR)
- Jane Judge (SO)
- Clare Kay (8)
- Maria Miller (JR)
Logistics and a detailed schedule for the trip to Baltimore will be posted under Meet Information. Thank you, Mrs. Condon, for handling Diving!
I am handling Swimming, but I still need a house Mom for both the Boy’s house and the Girl’s house to handle meals and adult supervision. Please don’t make me do it personally.
I have also posted all the individual qualifiers for the VISAA State Championship Meet under Meet Information. I expect the list to get longer.
Remember that we will be putting the fastest possible relays in the water which means most of the top swimmers will be swimming in all three (3) relays. The exception will probably be Ariana Aldeguer (FR) and Lionel Martinez (FR) because they may be able to generate more points swimming two (2) individual events.
For Diving, to qualify you must be able to do 11 Dives from all five (5) categories and demonstrate that you scored at least 2.5 on each one of them. Plus, you must have scored at least 140.00 in two (2) 6-Dive Meets using 11 different dives or 200.00 in an 11-Dive Meet. The Divers that have qualified so far are the ones we are taking to National Catholics.
We are now approaching the championship portion of the season with three (3) weeks left for all but the post-season Varsity team. The last meet of the season for more than half the team will be the VISAA Junior Varsity Invitational Championship on January 24th. Let’s make the most of the time that is left!
See you at practice,
Coach Jim Koehr